I was watching Synecdoche, New York and there is a segment where the main character visits his childhood bedroom. This got me thinking, since my film viewing mind is already in a meta reality-inside-reality space: Would I be willing to recreate my old childhood bedrooms? I had quite a few. I already collect magazines from the past, get nostalgic when seeing old toys or clothes that I remember from being a kid.
If I could 3D model or even prompt for a rendition of my past rooms, how would that feel? I'm a nostalgic person but for some reason the very boxed in world that I grew up in hasn't really been part of my nostalgia or longing back to childhood. I don't know if I overlooked it somehow, or if the rooms themselves carried little significance.
When I was 3, I got the room just to right of the stairs on the second floor of my grandmother's townhouse. When I opened my door my bed was just to the right and there was more than enough room for me to make a mess. I had some space inwards to the right, by the wall holding the balcony door. I can't remember if there was a desk there or some other furniture. At the opposite wall were probably some shelves or wardrobes. I do remember at christmas at least one year, my mom snuck in at night and dressed a christmas calendar with a new small gift every day. Sometimes a toy car, sometimes a cute eraser. She went past my bed thinking I was asleep, and tied it to my calendar on the foot end of my bed. The looks of the room was plain. Maybe I had blue wallpaper, maybe they were white. The floor was wooden. Once I filled the entire room with lego bricks and my grandmother who lived across the hall had to help me sort it out.
My second room were a tiny room in the very back of an apartment we maybe didn't really want. We moved there when I was 7 years old, just after my grandmother died. Entering my room, I think it was lit quite dimly, because I remember being there at christmas laying on my stomach in my bed, playing my GameBoy. There was an argument outside and I was trying to ignore it. My next memory is my cousins visiting before we went to live in a cabin in the mountains, to go skiing. I refused to go when my kid cousin accidentally folded an autographed postcard of a guitarist I liked. Maybe this happend in the room after this one, however.
My third room was even more temporary. It was a ground floor room facing the sidewalk outside. I had it set up with my bed on the opposite wall from my door, and at the foot of my bed I had a small table which I put my black and white 14 inch TV on, which I got from a friend of the family. I used it to play Super Nintendo at first. I think I bought it after renting the console once and playing it on our larger color TV. In this room I made do with my colorless one, and was just as happy with that. I think I enjoyed being able to close my door even at that early age. I must have been about 8.
My fourth room was a big one. I had lots of floor space, across the hall from my mother's bedroom. I had a carpet in the middle of the floor, a window facing the park, to the left when entering. Over the left shoulder were some wardrobes I think. By the window I had my keyboard set up so I could stand looking outside while playing. I had a desk at the opposite wall from the door, to the left. The right hand had my bed. I did like this room but I maybe remember it being a bit bare. I lived there when I turned 10 and maybe even 9 before that.
My fifth room was less impressive. I think it was facing the road outside with the woods on the other side of the road. I had some sort of shelf above the head of my bed where I kept the book or magazine I was currently reading. I guess this is where I bought my computer which became a fixture in my life from that point on. I have three distinct memories from this place. I had my birthday indoors and outside the pouring rain washed over us as me and my cousin ran to his place about a kilometer away to get something. He had drawn me an image on his computer and it displayed wierdly on my computer becase it was less advanced than his. The other memory is that I borrowed a Game Boy from a girl classmate with a bunch of games. It almost has to have been her brother's or dad's. I played the games until the batteries ran out and then returned it without replacing them. She had glasses and a pony tail. The third memory is inviting my cooler-than-me classmate and we played Settlers on my computer for a few hours. I thought we had a good time but when his mom picked him up I could tell he wouldn't return again.
My sixth room was hardly a room as I remember it. I remember sleeping there and I remember jerking off in the bathroom on the same upper floor. But most of what I remember is sitting outside of my room, by my cluttered desk which housed my computer and hundreds of floppy disks. This is where I formed as an advanced nerd. I think I eventually got my first PC here. I remember configuring the sound card to play the early 3D games for example. But before that I was disk swapping my Amgia and jerking off to pixelated photos of Pamela Anderson. One memory is of me and my cousin watching flickery pirated cable porn on my white 14 inch color TV. My bed was to the right when you entered the door. I must have had a window but I can't remember. I do remember having to fight off my step dad as he tried breaking into my room after he had left and I had made it clear I wanted nothing to do with him ever again. I think I spent my teens here until I was 14 or something.
My seventh room was quite bare. This is where I fully formed as a teen, discovered rap music, had the thematically best summer of my life, got a cell phone, watched junk TV with my mom, sneakily went online in the middle of the night for hours at a time, learned to break the law on the Internet, showered without a shower curtain in a bathroom with no lock, and spent the summer break waking up late, inline skating, and watching the summer-of-2000 MTV music videos, all of whom I still love to this day. I had some wardrobes, a bed and a desk with my gaming PC on it. My mom slept on the couch in the living room.
My eighth room was nothing to brag about really, but I was kind of pleased anyway. I was 16 and all I wanted was to sit by my computer, meet friends, get a girlfriend and explore being self-sufficient in a way. I remember sitting in my room lonely with few friends at all. I remember getting a girlfriend from this room, fucking here, getting to live here on my own as my mom was trying to get her relationship together, dreaming of cheating here, beginning to let my second life take form here by going out at night and acting weird, graduating high school here, growing depressed here, partying here, drinking alone here, and the list goes on. I spent so many hours by my computer in this room and this is where I sort of learned to play the guitar. I have so many fond memories of this shitty room and remember parts of it vividly. That's from where I left home and moved across country to start my own life.
Not sure if a 3D model would do me any good. I think the details of a child's room is best show in a photograph, not modelled by the adult after the fact. But I do wish I could relive some of these memories on command one day.